


Anticipation and Actuality

by lodessa



Series: Janeway/Chakotay Tumblr Prompts [27]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Frontier, Alternate Universe - Western, F/M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 01:36:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14966306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa
Summary: Governor Janeway's daughter was anything but amenable to his plan to marry her off to some local chieftan's son, but when she finally meets him Chakotay is not anything like Kathryn expected he would be.





	Anticipation and Actuality

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trekkerpoet29](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trekkerpoet29/gifts).



> The request was for: Perhaps a frontier/Wild West AU where Kathryn Janeway, eldest daughter of Governor Janeway is promised to Amal Kotay, eldest son of the chief, in order to bring peace to their small town. Kathryn, who hopes to be a scientist, is having none of it, and Chakotay, well, let’s just say he’s been dreaming about an opportunity this good for his whole life, with this prompt: “I have been eagerly awaiting the day I could finally meet you…and I am not disappointed. You are beautiful.”

I don’t care what father’s wishes were Phoebe,” Kathryn sighs as much as her bedeviled corset will allow her to, “I’m not about to be handed off to some savage merely because it’s convenient to others.”

“Come on, Kathryn,” Phoebe sits down next to her on the settee, “It’s sort of romantic, isn’t it? And the chief’s son is supposed to be dashingly handsome you know.”

“I’m not… Well to be honest I’m not romantic to begin with and even if I was an arranged marriage wouldn’t be my idea of it. Come on, help me catch the train to San Francisco without the others interfering and you can marry this Chakotay in my place if you are so keen on it. I do wish you’d come away with me and help me open the apothecary shop I’ve been dreaming about my whole time.”

“Why don’t you at least meet him?” Phoebe tries to re approach the issue. Kathryn knows her sister is an optimist, part of her artistic nature, and that she just doesn’t want to lose her, “Maybe you’ll hit it off.”

“I can’t imagine that,” she scoffs, “Though maybe he would call the betrothal off for me one he realizes that I’m the last thing he wants in a wife. Surely he’s been promised a perfect domestic lady, someone he can carry back to be a soft submissive ornament and when he discovered I’m a bull headed modern minded woman more interested in scientific study than embroidery-”

She stops abruptly, as she notices suddenly a figure standing in the doorway. Turning to get a better look, she finds her breath catches in a way that has nothing to do with her restrictive undergarments. 

The man standing there isn’t just good looking, he’s striking beyond measure. Tall and broad shouldered without being heavy set, his face is a well sculpted as any of the marble statues in the museums she’d visited before they’d moved out west when her father was appointed governor. 

He also has undoubtedly heard some if not all of her conversation with Phoebe and the unflattering and perhaps unjust things she has just said about him.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” he speaks and his voice is warm and soft, “The servant told me I could find the Miss Janeways here. I’m Chakotay, son of Kolopek.”

Phoebe has to elbow her to prompt her into remembering how to speak.

“I’m Kathryn Janeway, and this is my younger sister, Miss Phoebe Janeway. Please forgive whatever you may have overhead-”

“There’s nothing to forgive, Miss. It is I who should have announced my presence sooner. However, it is clear we have more to discuss than I anticipated.”

Kathryn finds herself caring a great deal what he is thinking, how he is feeling. This is not going as she expected, not by a longshot. She’d expected something different, that he’d be brutish or perhaps stony and silent. She had definitely not anticipated the way his mere presence would make her feel.

“Why don’t I see if I can rustle up a tea tray?” Phoebe smiles brightly, with a knowing smile cast in her sister’s direction, “Give you two a chance to get to know one another a bit.”

“Will you sit?” Kathryn gestures to the armchair besides the settee, sinking back down onto it, “I do hope I haven’t disappointed you too much with my manners or my appearance. I’m sure certain expectations were raised.”

He studies her face closely as he seats himself in the indicated seat.

“More curious than anything else,” he smiles for the first time revealing the most perfect set of dimples she has ever beheld, “I have been eagerly awaiting the day I could finally meet you…and I am not disappointed. You are beautiful. You are also clearly much more than that.”

“If you were so eager to meet me, why is it that you are just doing so now, when we are supposed to be wed within the fortnight?”

“I’ve been in Philadelphia, studying finance, and my train back only just arrived within the hour. I’ll admit I was a little overeager in coming here first.” he shocks her by replying, “It appears, however, that there is a great deal that we do not know about one another.”

“That much is clear.”

He is not at all what she expected, eloquent and clearly well educated. Why had no one told her? Or perhaps she should search within herself to consider why she had not asked, or perhaps indeed had not listened.

“I must begin by assuring you that I have no intention whatsoever of being party to a union that is against your wishes. I hope you may rest assured of that. If you do not wish to go through with the betrothal consider it cancelled.”

She would think he was merely trying to weasel out of the expectation as well, but something about the way he looks her in the eyes, not lewd but more than politely interested, speaks of something else.

“However, if I might present an alternative to you fleeing under the cover of night or us living amongst my father's’ people.”

He holds out his hand and she extends hers to allow him to clasp it before replying, “Which is?”

“Well, I had imagined that we would remain here in town, but now that I know of your dreams of going further west and opening an apothecary shop might I suggest that we embark on such a journey together. My degree has prepared me for the business end of such a venture and my mother taught me much about the medicinal properties of a variety of plants as a child. I could be a true partner to you in such a venture.”

“And you’d want to give up everything and follow my dreams why?” she can’t help asking incredulously, though she also finds herself already imagining the future he describes. 

She is still not prepared for him to bring his lips to her hand, those velvety soft lips which feel as divine as they look. Kathryn feels a giddy sort of anxious energy swirl within her, the warmth spreading quickly over her as he holds her hand in both of his and then speaks.

“I’ve known for a long time that I don’t want the life my father has but I never had such a clear vision and you clearly do. We both want to escape the futures our fathers planned for us, but I must confess though I have known you less than half an hour’s time, I believe that I could not have found for myself a better match than what they have suggested.”

“Is that so?” she sounds inane, even to her own ears, like one of those airheaded shallow girls who rot their brains with romance novels and gossip.

“You know you are beautiful, Miss Janeway. You must know that, but you are also clearly intelligent, strong willed, brave-”

“If we are to make good on this betrothal, you must call me Kathryn.”

She finds herself interlacing her fingers with his and pulling her hand back towards herself, leading him forward to sit beside her on the settee.

“Is that a yes then, Kathryn?” he asks, looking in her eyes and pressing his lips once more to the back of her hand and then turning it over to gently kiss the inside of her wrist.

“It’s not a no,” she manages to reply, heat beating as wildly as any bird trapped in a cage, feeling how flushed she must be from the roots of her hair down past the neckline of her dress.

It is probably fortuitous that at this moment they hear the sound of footsteps in the hallway, as the maid arrives laden with a heavy tea tray (a proportional overabundance of gingersnaps evidence that Phoebe has already had her way with it as she can’t eat them). A moment or two more and Kathryn is uncertain whether she would have been able to maintain the last shreds of her maidenly decorum in the face of Chakotay’s magnetism.

The ten days remaining before they are intended to be wed suddenly seems a very long time.


End file.
